SimCity

The reboot of Maxis’ popular SimCity franchise has the displeasure of having what is considered the worst video game launch in the industry’s history. The game was riddled with bugs, crashes, unavailable servers and many regarded the always online component of the game a slick way of incorporating consumer-punishing DRM. It’s been a year since the release of this controversial game and I feel now is the appropriate time to give it a proper review. Many game bugs have been corrected and the gameplay mechanics have been balanced and tweaked while servers have been implemented to ensure every player has full access to the online components of the game. Offline play has been added for those antisocial players who can’t be bothered playing with other people and an expansion pack titled Cities of Tomorrow was released to generally favorable reviews. So is the newest version of SimCity worth your time and money? The short answer is yes. While there are still a few bugs remaining to be worked out, the core of the game has been drastically repaired and reworked and the game is now, finally, at the state it should have been when released. If you can find SimCity on sale it’s certainly within your interest to grab a copy and see where this beloved computer game simulation franchise is heading.

Pros:Refreshing graphics and gameplayQuick pace of city building and management keeps you engagedFormerly complex systems have been simplified

Score:8.5/10

Graphics:The graphics of SimCity are wholly very well represented; cities start off as blank canvases onto which you paint your roads, residential, commercial, and industrial zones and drop down city services such as fire stations, hospitals, and police stations. As the game sends out the signal that your city has zoned land available, your Sims start to gobble up plots and claim their homesteads. The beauty of SimCity is the organic feel of the development of your city. Your residents start off living in ramshackle shacks, small one family suburban homes or, if you’re catering to a certain wealthy lifestyle, sprawling mansions. Each building has nice visual flare when viewed up close. Homes have various accouterments on the lawn like above ground pools, gazebos, and other such little trinkets of human life. The homes themselves look exactly like something you would build in another wildly popular Maxis title The Sims 3. The entire look of the game is knitted so perfectly your eyes never run out of things to consume. As your city grows in population your buildings too grow in
size and stature; tiny bungalows slowly turn into apartment walk-ups and condos
replace suburban houses. If you’re able
to keep your Sims happy enough they’ll eventually begin to build high rise
skyscrapers that cram in as many citizens as they can hold. It’s wonderful to watch your city grow from
its small foundations to a full-fledged city.
As you place your first zones building trucks flood into your city limits
and you can watch your buildings rise up from nothing. It’s really quite something to behold and you
are immediately invested in your little Sims lives and happiness as you watch
them build up your city. Buildings are
stretched up as floors are added and watching each project progress is
mesmerizing. As your Sims begin to move in traffic arises and flows onto
your streets and avenues. Each car is an
individual Sim processed by the game with a purpose such as finding work or
someplace to shop. Automobiles and mass
transportation are visually appealing.
Cars are modeled with nuance and buses and trains have a certain sleek
visual. Watching your roads and mass
transportation shuttle your residents around the city is just more graphical
eye candy. You can zoom your game camera
out to see your city in its entirety and zoom right down to the street level to
watch individual Sims depart the bus and walk down the street to find a place
to shop. Sims themselves look a little
strange; they’re stilted and have a vaguely human appearance but look more like
LEGO people than real humans. There is a
certain amount of whimsy though in the animations of your Sims as you watch
them mill around factories or watch children run around on the lawn of their
home. Where the graphics falter is in the overall look of your
city as it begins to consume more and more land. You’ll see buildings repeated throughout your
city and by the time skyscrapers start to pop up you’ll be disappointed to see
they almost all look the same based on their associated land value. Low income businesses are cloaked in drab
brick facades with nondescript signage and high wealth apartment buildings are
nothing more than glass faced structures.
A little more variety in terms of appearances would do a world of wonder
for the game as each city would look distinct and filled with buildings of all
colors, shapes, and sizes. There is also
a visual filter called “Tilt Shift” that artificially expands the depth
perception you experience when viewing your city from street level. The foreground is displayed in crisp, bright
detail while the background is blurred and hazy. It makes your city feel much larger than it
actually is, but when you realize that this effect is all for show your city
limits feel cramped. “Ploppable” buildings are generally enormous city services
structures that take up huge amounts of space in your city. Fire stations, hospitals, and event centers
are nicely detailed even though they take up large amounts of real estate. Zooming in you’ll see nice touches around
these buildings just like everything else in the game. Parking attendants point cars into parking
spaces when the event center is operational and casinos generate groups of
gamblers and pit bosses alike. Your Sims,
animated in such an odd looking fashion, force you to stretch your imagination
to get the full effect of all these graphical flourishes. Additionally, these “ploppable” buildings
come with upgrades the player can add on as the city requires more
services. Added ambulances and police
cars pull out of parking lots and roam the city looking for problems to solve
complete with flashing emergency lights.
Event centers put on a spectacular fireworks show as the event comes to
a close. Even though these facilities
take up enormous real estate they’re modeled well and really make your city’s
landscape pop with life. Overall the graphics in SimCity are dazzling to behold.
Your city thrums with life as you watch your Sims walk the sidewalks or
drive their cars to and from work. The
buildings look distinct in terms of wealth but it’s a shame they begin to look
the same as your city expands and grows.
The different information panels display most information as color
overlays so armchair mayors can quickly identify problems such as crime or
traffic congestion via a graphical cover as opposed to slogging through reams
of text and menus. Sims look like stick
people but their strange movements add a visual touch that’s comical and
whimsical. For a game that requires a
generally powerful machine to run well these are minor quibbles about its
graphical presentation, but some cheap implementation mars the visual
experience. Cars pop into and out of
existence as do Sims. As they enter or
exit a building or cars Sims simply disappear into an invisible space. Likewise buses, trains, and other modes of
mass transit don’t have fine working details.
Doors don’t open to let passengers off and on and those methods of
transportation that run on rails pop over to the other side of the tracks if
they need to switch direction. You’ll
also find a lot of empty space in your city if you don’t get the road
dimensions just right. The game doesn't seem optimized fully to maximize space.
None of the graphical hiccups ruin the game, and hopefully they get
filled in as the game continues to age and more fixes and optimizations are
implemented.

Sound: The sound in SimCity,
like the graphics, is outstandingly pleasing.
The sound track as you open the game is soothing and subtle, a
compliment to the relatively easy and relaxing gameplay you’ll experience. An orchestral swell greets you each time you
open the game and the music is so delicate and unobtrusive that it relaxes you
into the game rather than blare sounds at you to let you know you’re going to
be entering an awesome experience. Most
of the sound effects in the game are just as subtle as the music and it’s
soothing as you build up your city. Sound effects in the game are handled well and everything
sounds exactly in place.Busses have
pneumatic brakes that hiss as they roll up to a stop and trains blare their
horns as they pull away from the station.If you’ve ever walked around a major metropolis you’ll hear everything
represented well in SimCity.The music and sound effects blend into each
other perfectly and no sound overbears anything else playing.Sirens wail in the distance when zoomed out
and up close you hear the murmurs of Sims chatter, industrial buildings buzzing
with mechanical activity, and car engines humming as they travel down the
street. Most of my reviews lambaste some aspect of the
sound engineering or design and it’s an often overlooked aspect of video
gaming. SimCity has sound that’s so absolutely perfect and natural that you
barely notice it’s there and that’s a sign that this facet of design received a
lot of attention from the developers.
The sounds of SimCity will
subconsciously blend right into your altered perception of reality while you
play and the soothing music and expertly leveled ambient city noises fully envelop
the player as they fool about with their construction toolkit.

Gameplay:SimCity came under
heavy consumer fire when it was announced that it would launch as basically a
city building MMO hybrid. Players were
required to log into the EA servers and it was explained that the game was
designed around intercity relationships.
No city in the game could exist on its own and other players, or at the
least an entire region controlled by one player, would be necessary for the
game to function as anticipated and the cloud was needed to compute the
supposedly vast amounts of data. After a
year of bug fixes and patches, EA and Maxis have finally added an offline mode
that allows players to store saves on their local machine and roll back saves
if the player experiences some sort of city catastrophe and would rather return
to a previous game state. Online mode
has remained largely unchanged and once a region is founded all game data is
saved to the servers and cannot be rolled back.
In rare instances now, game data may get lost inside the cloud but this doesn't seem to happen much anymore. Offline play, though feverishly demanded by many players
looking back to the roots of the franchise, is a lonely experience and in my
estimation more frustrating than fun.Since cities depend on each other to provide necessary services and ensure
the flow of goods and people between each other, offline play requires you to constantly
switch between cities in your region to balance out each need of your
individual cities.In online mode, as
long as you find the right group of people who don’t bail out on your region,
which admittedly is no easy feat, you’re instantly connected to a group of
players who can work together to build up a balanced region.While this same city switching was present
before offline mode was introduced it does provide rollback saves but this one
change doesn't seem quite enough to get me to fully invest.Because cities need each other to thrive, heavily
industrialized cities, for example, can supply the entire region with advanced
fire trucks to battle the fires that break out in more complex buildings
leaving your city’s payroll free to focus on something else.Large factories require special hazmat trucks
to extinguish the flames and, because all services can be shared with neighbors,
your city can provide one service to every other connected city while receiving
what you lack from someone else.If you
build a casino empire in your city you may find yourself dealing with the
massive influx of crime via the police precinct which houses many criminals,
rehabilitates them faster, and has a huge lot for patrol cars and upgrades that
help you and your neighbors prevent crime before it even happens.This interconnected gameplay is nuanced and
necessary to fully enjoy the game and shuttering the online mode is more of a hindrance
than a relief.While it does thwart the
DRM and opens up the game to the modding community to create new and exciting
content, it seems an unnecessary step to me and in the long run may actually
damage the entire concept of the franchise as it moves into the future.Time will tell and hopefully this doesn't set
the franchise back or alienate or deter players just coming into the game if
the original concept of intercity dependency goes missing or becomes more
difficult than it actually should be.Once you chose your region based on the amount of cities and
“Great Work” sites it contains, you’re free to choose any plot of land and
start building your city right away.City size is still a point of hot debate among players and the
developers have stated more than once that this cannot be changed due to
restrictions of the game engine.While
this may be true you will wish your cities could be just a tad larger in terms
of breadth.An infant city feels right
at home in this small space and the cozy atmosphere makes small villages and
towns look quaint.As your city grows,
however, the buildings will butt up against the edges of your plot and when you
zoom out to view your entire region cities look more like islands in a sea of
open grassland or forest.Plots of
buildable space close to one another look like something you may see in real
life, but most regions are wide open areas of empty space just begging to be
filled up with homes, businesses, and factories.City plots are fixed on the map, cannot be
moved, and the highway entrance to your city, the main form of transferring
goods or services, is also permanent.It
adds a bit of challenge trying to figure out how to set your infrastructure up
but since there is no undo button you’ll have to survey your plot and plan
carefully as reworking your city is expensive and tedious.Once you have your first few roads laid out, zoning for
residential, commercial, and industrial is as easy as painting these zones
against the road area.Your Sims will
take care of the rest and will begin to build up your city automatically.Unlike every other entry in the series so
far, zones must be placed against a road to have access to the city; SimCity 4 with its wide zones packed with
buildings this is not, but the mechanic in SimCity
works well even though buildings seem to have trouble making the most of the
space you give them.The roads also
serve as the city’s main thoroughfare for power, water, and sewage.Unlike SimCity
4 where the mayor had to lay pipe work and power lines, SimCity simplifies this and maybe a
little too much.Part of the charm of
the franchise up until this point was having a high level of control of the
look and function of your city.SimCity 4 also had the added benefit of
interconnected cities but it required the player to manually switch between
each plot of land in a region to fix problems between each town and the loading was insufferably long.That game also had regions where every bit of
land was prime real estate and if players were really good at balancing their
budgets they could build some wonderfully packed regions full of millions of
people that would look something like the New York metropolitan area as seen
from space.SimCity lacks this high level of control and it is missed, but if
you can find a few friends to play with you’ll quickly forget about having to
manually place power lines or water mains as you chatter away about sharing
services and figuring out who is going to supply what to the region.Cities must invest in a specialization in order to be fully
functional and provide the most expensive and exclusive services to the
region.Casinos and tourism, via
landmarks for your visitors to visit and spend their cash at, generate huge
hourly profits but increase crime that may spill over your borders and affect
the other players in your vicinity.Mining and oil drilling usually run your city’s budget into the red but
trading those resources on the “Global Market”, the online resource exchange
that allows players to buy and sell materials they need, can fill the city
coffers with millions of Simoleons. Each specialization requires planning and
forethought in order to make them effective and the challenge of making each
specialization work requires a different approach to playing the game.With such a limited set of specializations
the appeal wears off quickly as each new city you start begins to follow a
formula.Draw your roads, get some
people to move in, then aggressively pursue your specialization.After a while it becomes a little lackluster.
No matter the specialization you choose your city should be able to generate
massive amounts of cash in order for you to expand your city and keep your
residents happy.Gone too is the monthly
budget cash-in; each in game hour will deposit into or subtract from your city’s
coffers keeping you quite mobile while playing.You’re not forced to suffer through a game month in order to get paid
and this quick cash generating pace ensures you've got the funds to always do
just one more thing you've been anticipating.The main draw for multiplayer gameplay is the building of
“Great Works”, huge construction projects the entire region takes part in
putting together, supplying materials and workers to see the project to
completion.There’s the Arcology, a
gigantic housing complex that supplies the region with workers so residential
zones can be replaced with other city services or zones, the Solar Farm which
will supply the region with huge amounts of nearly free electricity so nuclear
power plants can be closed to avoid radiation accidents, the International
Airport which will be a boom for cities focusing on tourism, and the Space
Center which increases the technology and education of the region providing
cities with high tech industrial.Each
one is built in a specific area and will only benefit cities that are connected
to it.They’re a great joy to watch
their construction and it gives players a real sense of purpose as they work
cooperatively towards a common goal.The
four that are included with the game are each unique in look and function, but
more variety would be nice.Hopefully as
the game is expanded more “Great Works” will come into existence.Once you've built them all you’ll be wishing you
had something else to do or some new toy to try out to see how it affects your
region.While it’s easy to get your city powered, buildings hooked
up to the water main without having to fiddle with wonky pipe laying controls,
and carry away the waste structures produce to the treatment plant, there are a
few omissions to the game that are missed.Subways would have been a nice touch to shuttle people quickly around
the city.As it stands everything must be processed via a
street or avenue so street cars take the place of underground subways.They’re fun to watch as they travel the
middle of the wide avenues you build but they’re just not as satisfying as
building an underground network of trains.Vehicles are also lacking in diversity and you’ll see the same three or
four car models navigating your roadways.While using the streets to supply everything your city needs certainly
works within the constructs of the game, it really feels a little flat after a
while.As long as you don’t see your
power or water icon at the bottom of the screen turn yellow or red, indicating
a problem with supply, you won’t ever really have to do much actual work to
keep your city going.This keeps you
focused squarely on working cooperatively with your friends and benefiting your
region but being able to work the way your city looks to your liking would add
a nice touch.Even if the game engine
automatically threw up a few power lines spontaneously just to add visual flair
would be something lovely.As your
cities grow they do begin to feel a little flat and more dramatic visual
changes based on your city’s specialization would really make all your work
that much more satisfying.Commercial diversity and the inclusion of a more complex
goods service is something you’ll also find yourself wanting.Sims just go to any store to increase their
happiness.Sims don’t have to visit
specific stores to purchase necessary goods or services and with a game that
can be so much more than it currently is I hope this gets added, and soon.It would be nice to have the game drill down
into the deep layers of what’s possible.Sims should have to supply their houses with food, purchase a new car,
or otherwise add something valuable to their home and the city should somehow
be able to supply these needed resources whether by importing these goods or
making them yourself somehow.This
mechanic wouldn't have to rely on a city specialization necessarily; your Sims
could manage it on their own.Factories
could produce clothing, food, cars or anything else the developers can include
and it would add an even deeper layer to the game and introduce some much
needed variety to this otherwise lackluster area.As it is Sims just produce nondescript “goods”
that don’t really affect your city in terms of look or functioning. With the cloud saves and the inability to roll
back cities in online mode, the charm of building up a major metropolis only to
unleash horrifying disasters upon your unsuspecting folks is gone. Random disasters can be turned off when you
set up your region but if you leave them on be prepared to have your city
become crippled in a matter of seconds. Depending
where the disaster epicenter is you may have critical income generating
buildings destroyed and if you’re not making sure you keep some money in your treasury
your city may spiral into a debt you cannot escape. It is fun to watch meteors rain down from the
sky or a giant lizard rampage through your streets as long as these, and other,
disasters only destroy Sim-built buildings.
Sure hundreds may have perished but your Sims get over the carnage
quickly and will rebuild almost immediately.
Money is what makes your city flourish and the game really challenges
players to critically think about road placement, mass transit optimization,
and building location to ensure the city isn't snarled in traffic or broke and unable to sustain itself. Should you run
out of cash the game will pause every few seconds until the balance sheet is in
the green; if you can’t get your city back up to par you’ll be forced to
resign. The real challenge of SimCity comes from working within
constricted city sizes, the massive cost of some services and specialization
buildings, keeping cash rolling in either by the trade of goods on the “Global
Market” or by hourly taxes, and a deep understanding of the game mechanics in
order to build successful cities and flourishing regions.

Final Thoughts: Despite a rocky start and a launch that nearly brought the
game and the franchise to a screeching halt, SimCity has been thankfully fixed and is in prime position to take
over the city building simulation market.
Many players are still left with a bitter taste in their mouth and the
franchise continues to suffer from the aftershocks of the problems that plagued
it out of the gate. EA and Maxis have
really shown a spectacular dedication to their product and fan base, and even
though EA is the video game company we all love to hate, they have shown a soft
side that corporate America doesn’t give out much these days. They really do believe in the longevity and
success of this product and despite the horrifying launch of the game they have
worked hard to really turn it around and take their players concerns and
comments seriously. The game does fall into a trap of monotony after a while unfortunately.Small city sizes and a lack of new content
restrict a game that many players want to see explode with diversity and
flair.There is downloadable content
available such as the expansion pack Cities
of Tomorrow which adds a futuristic sensibility to your city and comes with
mega towers, which allow you to expand up rather than out and that can become self-sustaining
ecosystems, and a maglev train to ferry
passengers around your city.There are
also smaller packs that contain English, French, and German buildings styles to
change the look of your city and an amusement park pack to add a further city
specialization.However the asking
prices seem rather inflated and many cash strapped players may roll their eyes
at having additional content locked away behind pay walls.They are probably worth the money to add more
content to a base game that is relatively sparse, and EA has tossed players
some freebies along the way but they’re not much in terms of quality and
quantity.If you enjoy the base game
then you should certainly look into cherry picking the packs that interest you to
help support a game you inevitably will become highly invested in.Asking for money for essentially new building
skins in the English, French, and German packs seems a tad like highway
robbery.They may give you a few new
buildings but the current asking price of ten dollars each seems steep. From a video game loaded with crippling bugs to
something much more refined than we all ever anticipated, SimCity is now the crown jewel in the franchise and shows just how
forward thinking Maxis is being. As the game
continues to morph and mature and content is added SimCity will become a video game that defines the genre and
inspires developers to refine this new formula.
For those gamers who have patience, their virtue has certainly paid off
for waiting to dive into SimCity. They’ll be avoiding the frustrations that
haunted the launch of this game and can easily slip right into the flow of
building up their cities and working cooperatively with the large player base
to tackle great works. If you’re a fan
of the SimCity franchise or city
building simulations in general this is a purchase you won’t soon regret.